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Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

psychiatrymargins.com

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Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#401

Post by alganet »

Nevermark wrote: post #378
alganet wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kinds of genetic claims people usually make about schizophrenia are of the hereditary kind (including the post article), not random mutations. I attribute this to how the illness is researched: finding a genetic factor would be a major breakthrough, so lots of people do studies on that, and eventually force their way into a discovery that represents a narrow subset of the illness but ultimately fails to explain i…

Yeah, I was referring to a mix of genes not mutation. Some things happen only with the right set of genes, which don’t come together through any obvious combination of parents or ancestors and may also be unlikely to pass on as a set to children too. Even more complicated, there may be alternative genes, making identifying which genes are a factor and which are not very difficult. But I am just pointing out that most…

> But I am just pointing out that most things have a genetic pattern behind them, since all our features do.

I guess I'm genetically predisposed to not give much credit to genetics then. Nothing you can do about it, I will always be skeptical regarding these sorts of claims.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#402

Post by Mars008 »

Mars008 wrote: post #361
winrid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia it's starting to seem like drugs that seem harmless like marijuana (specifically THC?) can definitely bring it out. At least, that's what seemed to happen to my mother and another friend.

> harmless like marijuana You a joking. Nobody talks about it to not to harm 'suffering minorities' business. However there are researches that show harm from marijuana is significant and likely permanent. It's no better than tobacco. But you'll never see it on CNN for political reasons...

> You a joking. Nobody talks about it to not to harm 'suffering minorities' business. However there are researches that show harm from marijuana is significant and likely permanent. It's no better than tobacco. But you'll never see it on CNN for political reasons...

Two downvotes so far. Any explanation? Can't please everybody, especially Kamala voters.

But my advice: if you value your cognitive abilities, blood vessels health, and I'm sure it's snowballing, stay away from any form of marijuana.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#403

Post by mzs »

astrange wrote: post #334
amy214 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complicated interaction. Schizos may take alcohol or cigarettes to calm down, a form of self medication. On the long term these may worsen, in the immediate they help. Why do you think they smoke a lot?!? To treat. If you smoke or drink, what do you do after a tough day - smoke or drink, to relax, feels great. Schizos may have a tough day , but not from external stimuli, but from internal stimuli

Nicotine is a more effective schizophrenia treatment than the actual medications, which is why over 80% of them smoke. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2613326/

That study might say that there is promise in further research instead of better, but yes a lot of smokers.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#404

Post by bumby »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #166
cageface wrote: post #116

Maybe this could explain why mental illness & creativity seem to be so closely related? Just as one example, James Joyce's daughter was schizophrenic.

Mental illness and creativity are not closely related. There is correlation but mental illness is not required for creativity. According to Wikipedia, creative people are 25% more likely to have a mental illness. As for why so many bipolar people are famous, manic episodes can be very productive. For myself, being bipolar has given me several lifetimes of perspective to inform my writing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w…

Not my area of expertise, so it should be taken with a boulder of salt, but there are other studies that seem to indicate a much higher correlation. Part of the problem may be that “creative” is a nebulous term. One Swedish study found that people with artistic backgrounds have a 1.9x likelihood of developing schizophrenia and 1.62x odds of developing bipolar disorder.

I suspect (with nothing to support it) that there is a range where people with mental illness are able to interpret the world differently than normies (and thus make connections that normies do not), but also a point where that perception gets so out of joint that they can no longer function in reality. So in the former case, it may help in creative pursuits, but the latter may hamper it.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#405

Post by staunton »

Out_of_Characte wrote: post #391
staunton wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I never claimed otherwise. What I'm saying is that evolution matters across large timescales. By contrast, I believe the topics I was commenting on concern timescales where effects of biological evolution are negligible compared to the effects of memetic evolution. Thus, biological evolution doesn't matter at all for predicting what will happen (or is happening right now) to humanity, unless predicting so far i…

Its impossible to properly seperate biological evolution from current day enviromental pressure. There have been many natural and man-made disasters that have killed or otherwise economically robbed millions of people from a good future in their lifetime. Its difficult to say what the fitness function actually selected for. If you could look back far enough and understood most of the enviromental pressures we faced,…

Again, sure. However, this is still looking at things at the timescale of millenia at best.

In my original comment, I was claiming that biological evolution is not relevant for this:

> as people and societies become wealthier and better educated (both correlated with intelligence), their reproduction rates drop precipitously. Perhaps we've overshot the intelligence cliff and evolution is now gradually pulling us back.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#406

Post by ninetyninenine »

Aeglaecia wrote: post #398
ninetyninenine wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never held water for me. There's no evidence that gay uncles expend the majority of their time raising the offspring of others in the family. In fact the gay uncle is behaviorally driven to do things that are evolutionarily detrimental. Like spending time mating, flirting and being with other gay men. I don't really see gay men abandoning all of that to care for a nephew or something like that. Take Sam Altman for ex…

maybe theres a reason religion represses gay people, without the pressure of raising their own offspring there is 0 barrier to overt hedonism. lacking the opportunity to live this way and instead existing under a system of morality, the energy of gay people would naturally be inclined towards taking care of their own family, especially when a sibling dies in battle or by disease

They must participate in capitalism or trade and other activities that help survival. I don't think it just switches to doing favors.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#407

Post by _xtrimsky »

Throwaway42754 wrote: post #21

I have schizoaffective disorder, induced by a bad trip from marijuana. It was like the 3rd time I had tried weed, and I naively took too much. For me psychosis feels like pattern matching going on extreme overdrive, while at the same time memory goes to shit. It's truly an awful illness, and what's worse is that the current medical treatments are bad. I've been fortunate enough where I can get by on a low dose olanza…

This post convinced me to never try marijuana again.

I've tried 3 times, last time was a bad trip, I went into a very cold state (was shaking) and I was seeing random visual images every second. It felt like my brain was telling chat gpt to generate a random image on the fly none stop.

Anyways I was fine the next day, but I'm not trying it ever again if there is some risks associated with it. I took a low dose (half gummy).

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#408

Post by mark-r »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #227
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are only genes that increase the risk of schizophrenia I think that's what GP was saying? > You’re just switching one set of risk genes for another. I think... that's what GP was saying?

>> You’re just switching one set of risk genes for another. > I think... that's what GP was saying? If you are switching one low survival gene for another there is no net benefit.

It depends very much on the likelihood that the gene causes a disorder, and the deadliness of the disorder. Those two outcomes could be vastly different.

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#409

Post by thenaturalist »

_xtrimsky wrote: post #407
Throwaway42754 wrote: post #21

I have schizoaffective disorder, induced by a bad trip from marijuana. It was like the 3rd time I had tried weed, and I naively took too much. For me psychosis feels like pattern matching going on extreme overdrive, while at the same time memory goes to shit. It's truly an awful illness, and what's worse is that the current medical treatments are bad. I've been fortunate enough where I can get by on a low dose olanza…

This post convinced me to never try marijuana again. I've tried 3 times, last time was a bad trip, I went into a very cold state (was shaking) and I was seeing random visual images every second. It felt like my brain was telling chat gpt to generate a random image on the fly none stop. Anyways I was fine the next day, but I'm not trying it ever again if there is some risks associated with it. I took a low dose (half…

Cannabis is not to be trifled with.

While other stimulant substances when used might also lead to psychosis, it is cannabis which stands out with the highest risk of a psychosis becoming chronic and developing on into schizophrenia.

Sources:

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis

[1]: https://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/substance-induced-psychoses...

Re: Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

#410

Post by dyauspitr »

andai wrote: post #146
suzzer99 wrote: post #9

I've lost one of my best friends to what I think is schizophrenia. We don't know because she's cut off all contact with friends and family and refuses to see a doctor. It's definitely psychosis. She thinks she's in some kind of Truman show that she calls "the game". Since none of her friends or family are willing to admit to it, then we must be in on it. We don't know her full family medical history because her dad w…

Cannabis is also a potent psychedelic, and its association with psychosis is well established. (Not to condemn psychedelics, I just think the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the "it's totally harmless" direction.) Could you elaborate on The Game? What did she say about this?

You can definitely get fried on cannabis but you have to do it a lot, like multiple times a week for a while. In my mid twenties I smoked all day everyday for years and in my case it definitely left me paranoid and agoraphobic. That was more than a decade ago and I haven’t really smoked much pot since then (maybe once a year) and you end up making a full recovery after about 6 months to a year of no usage.
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